//------------------------------//
// Gang aft a-gley 
// Story: Another favour 
// by Cackling Moron 
//------------------------------//

Typically, Anon was very easy to find. Equally typically, now that Twilight actually wanted to track him down he was suddenly in the wind. This meant that what should have been an easy walk-over-and-have-a-word became a far lengthier walk-around-town-asking-if-anypony-had-seen-him affair that rapidly left her frazzled.

That he eventually turned up asleep under a tree really was the kind of thing she should have seen coming.

He looked so decidedly peaceful that it was almost a shame to disturb him, but Twilight did have something she needed to ask him so, gently, she gave him a nudge.

This did nothing, so she gave him a harder nudge. This one worked.

Jerking awake he blinked, confused, looking around blearily, sitting up straight.

“Phwooph, I’m awake, I’m awake, I’m - oh, hey you!” He said, once his eyes settled on Twilight. Smiling in the groggy way someone who still isn’t wholly conscious yet can only manage he relaxed against the tree again, waving at Twilight.

“I was looking for you.” she said while he yawned and stretched. He took a moment to finish doing this and then blinked at her some, perplexed. 

“You were? I’ve been here all day,” he said, raising his arms again in what started as another stretch and turned instead into just indicating the world at large. “What a lovely day, eh? Couldn’t really stay inside on a day like today.”

This was exactly what Twilight had been doing up until going to try and find him, but she didn’t feel the need to mention that. She’d spent the first part of her search outside squinting in the sun and cursing the brightness. Clearly their attitudes didn’t quite align. 

She scratched the back of her head. A nervous habit. One of many she possessed that seemed to surface inexplicably whenever she was talking to Anon. Noticing that she was doing it she very firmly put her hoof back down again.

“Um, yeah. Anon, there was something I needed to ask you…” She said while he rubbed his eyes.

“That so? What’s up?” He asked.

“I need another favour…”

That got Anon’s attention and he immediately sat up straight again.

“Ooh, do we have to pretend again? Last time was a tonne of fun.”

That caught her off-guard.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Well I had a whale of a time. Got to eat donuts, got hit by donuts - it was a whole experience. Is it like that again?” He asked with every appearance of eagerness. As odd as it was, Twilight had to admit it was at least a little endearing.

“Not really. This is kind of a favour for a friend via me,” she said.

“Ah. One of those. I’m your man, Twilight,” said Anon, tapping his nose as though he had a clue what she was talking about.

“If you don’t mind?”

“Nah, course I don’t mind Twilight. You know me, I’m down for whatever. Though, that said, actually knowing what it is might help - what’s going down?”

She took a breath - the next part she’d practised many times over in her head, just to get the details straight. Back in the safety of the inside, away from the sunshine and the expectant eyes of Anon it had all seemed airtight and easy.

Now, not so much. But too late to back out.

“Okay: so, Rarity’s met this stallion and he’s lovely and he wants to take her out to dinner but Rarity’s had bad luck before so wants to sort of ‘vet’ him first so said that dinner will be fine as long as it’s not just the two of them so she asked me to come along as well but I thought that having three for dinner would be unbalanced so I asked her if I could ask someone else to balance it out and she said yes and so I asked you.”

This was not how she had practised it but that was how it came out.

And very little of this was true, obviously. A table had been booked, but that was about it. All the other details were wholly fictitious. It was an elaborate ruse! Twilight chewed her lip once she’d finished speaking, keenly aware of all the myriad problems that should have been obvious to anyone of a more suspicious bent than Anon. 

If he had any misgivings, he wasn’t voicing them. He just ran through this plan in his head, counting off on his fingers and mouthing to himself. Twilight watched nervously.

He then shrugged.

“Alright, that all tracks. So I’m basically there to make up numbers?” He asked and Twilight hoped she didn’t look too relieved at how well he’d taken this.

“I guess? So it didn’t feel so much like the guy was being ganged up on, you know?” 

Anon nodded. He knew.

“I get you, I get you. And you’re asking me? Everyone else busy?” He asked, grinning, self-effacing. Twilight frowned at him for such wanton self-deprecation.

“I asked you first, actually,” she said. He put a hand to his bosom. 

“Oh my, first choice? That’s pressure, that is Twilight. I shall do my best to live up to your expectations!”

He gave a tiny salute. Then paused, and tried it a different way.

“Navy? No, army. Wait, is this even British? You know what, nevermind,” he said, giving a bow instead. Twilight watched all of this with utter confusion and decided not to comment on it and instead just try to forge onward.

“So is that a yes?” She asked and Anon gave her a thumbs up, a gesture she always rather liked, if only for its novelty. 

“Big yes. Should probably ask for more details first though, shouldn’t I? That’s the adult thing to do. So when is this? What is this? Where is this?” He asked.

Twilight pointed back behind her, towards Ponyville.

“It’s just in town, I was going to show you where later because it’s, um, tonight. Sorry.”

She had been putting off asking him, which, in hindsight, could only ever made made it worse. But that was hindsight for you. Not that Anon appeared to mind the short notice.

“So soon! Let me just check my schedule,” he said, leaning back a moment, staring into space. He then lent forward again. “Yep, all clear.”

Such was Twilight’s delight at how well this was all going that she gave a tiny squeal and hopped in a tiny circle. It just slipped out. Once she’d done this she felt a little embarrassed, but Anon had loved it, grinning ear to ear.

“That was adorable, Twilight, you should totally do that more. Uh, it’s not a fancy place, is it? I’m not going to have to get dressed up or anything?” He asked, the grin disappearing at the prospect of putting on anything overly formal. 

“No, no, not fancy,” Twilight said, straightening herself out after her little turn and doing her best not to be too pink around the ears. Anon mock-mopped his brow.

“Phew, good. Business casual it is. Mean, got to look at least semi-presentable or else Rarity’d have my guts for garters. Shirt and trousers always a solid choice.”

Twilight had never actually seen Anon in one of the proper shirts that Rarity had made for him. The thought of what he might look like so dressed up, unbidden, made the struggle to keep the pinkness at bay that much harder.

With a grunt Anon rose to standing, dusting himself down.

“Well my day just got a whole lot more interesting! That tends to happen when you’re around, you know,” he said, wagging a finger down at Twilight, who shuffled her hooves.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No no, it’s a good thing. I like interesting. Walk you back?” He asked, gesturing back towards town. Twilight smiled, nodded.

“Sure.”

The walk was undertaken mostly in companionable silence. The tree Anon had picked out as his napping spot was a sufficient distance away to make the walk pleasantly scenic. Twilight had to admit that it was actually quite a nice day.

A part of her - small part, agreeably, but a part all the same - had sort of been hoping that Anon might have smelt a rat and picked her story apart before refusing, if only so that she wouldn’t have to go through the worry of the next part. 

That had not happened though, so the worry was there in force. Was everything prepared? The table was definitely booked, she knew that. Her outfit, too, picked out. So what else could go wrong? She wasn’t sure, but something surely could, and her not being able to immediately think of what could only be a bad thing. Surely?

Anxiety never really needed a lot to get going.

“He a nice guy?” Anon asked, breaking Twilight out what had started to become a minor death-spiral of baseless worry. She jerked and looked up at him.

“Who?”

“This lad Rarity’s sweet on. He a nice guy?”

Took Twilight a second to get back onto the proper track for this one.

“Oh! Right! Yes! Uh, I mean, I haven’t met him yet. But I think so!” She said, emphatically.

“Guess we’ll find out, eh? Rarity’s a pretty good judge of character, I reckon. Ooh, this should be fun! It’ll be like a double date!” Anon said with far more glee than was seemly, rubbing his hands in anticipation. Twilight nearly fell flat on her face.

“W-we’re not on a date though, remember? They’re on the date. We’re just there for support,” she said hurriedly but Anon just wafted a hand at her.

“Yes yes yes. I did say like a double date, Twilight,” he said. Then, on looking down, followed up with: “You alright? You look a little off-colour there.”

“I’m fine!”

-

Not long after that they went their separate ways, Twilight saying she’d swing by a little later and that they’d then go off together. Both then did whatever it was they needed to do beforehand, which in Twilight’s case involved a lot of last minute doubt and fretting and in Anon’s case very nearly falling asleep again on his sofa.

By the time there came a knocking on his door, he had succeeded in putting clothes on and making himself look what he felt to be a reasonable level of acceptable. A brush had been involved. It had been quite distressing.

“I thought maybe you’d forgotten about me, you know-” he said cheerfully on opening the door, only to be stopped short by what was on the other side.

What he saw was Twilight in a dress. He’d never seen Twilight in a dress before. It was so unexpected that he blanked out for a moment and entirely lost his train of thought, gaping openly before snapping his mouth shut and shaking his head to get his brain going again.

“Whoa. You didn’t mention anything about fanciness. If I’d known there’d be fanciness I would put a little more effort in. You look Goddamn gorgeous, Twilight, go you,” he said, stepping aside to let her in.

Hearing this, Twilight somehow managed to go even more red than she’d been to start with. Which was impressive. She hurried in and kept her face down.

“T-thanks…” She mumbled. “You look fancy too.”

Anon looked down at himself and frowned, tugging on his shirt.

“Well I thought I did but now I’ll be standing next to you! Ah well, that’s life I suppose. Are we going now or waiting or what?” He asked, and she cast an eye to the clock he had hung on the wall.

“Should probably go now,” she said.

“But you just arrived! Ah well, the way these things go. After you, I’ll lock up.”

And so right back out she went, Anon close behind. Once the door was locked she led the way, acutely aware of the double-takes of those they passed and doing her best to just keep her eyes forward and stick to the plan. Technically, everything was progressing smoothly, it just felt awkward and horrifying.

The place wasn’t far, as it turned out. Just down a street and round a corner and down another street - a veritable hop, skip and a jump from his very own doorstep. Anon even recognised it by sight, though only in as much as he’d passed by it before and not given it much thought. 

It had a name that Anon was not even going to try and pronounce, which was always a sign of quality.

“French, nice,” he said as they stood outside it, looking up at the sign hanging over the door.

“Prench,” Twilight corrected. Anon looked down at her, appalled.

“What? No. I refuse to accept that.”

She rolled her eyes and entered without another word. Anon gave another glance up towards the sign.

“Prench. Prancing, right? Yeah, I get it. This place, honestly…”

He entered too, shaking his head.

Inside, Anon was again struck with the impression that the fanciness of this whole event had been severely downplayed to him. The place was fancy as anything. Everything looked expensive. There was a pony standing beside a lectern or something just inside the entrance, Anon saw, noting too the pony’s magnificently incongruous moustache.

Twilight was already talking to the guy.

“Table for four? Booked for seven thirty?” She asked. He looked at her a second, as though daring her to withstand his implied scorn, then huffed quietly and turned to the lectern-thingy.

You’d have thought he’d be more welcoming to paying customers. Maybe it was part of the ambience?

While the guy - maitre ‘d? Anon wasn’t up on the technical terms - checked the list for their reservation Anon leant down to Twilight and hissed:

“This place is swish. Feel like I’m wasting a fortune just standing here.”

That got them both a sharp look and Twilight just chuckled nervously, giving Anon a bump with her side which he correctly interpreted as a sign he should be quiet until they’d sat down. 

“You are early,” the Moustache Pony said, indicating that they should follow him with nothing more than a contemptuous flick of the head. Their table was tucked right back in a far corner. The unkind might have called it isolated, Anon thought it snug.

“Guess we got here early,” he said, pulling Twilight’s seat out for her before sitting himself. There wasn’t a lot of gallantry to this, he was just closer to the chairs so it made sense.

“Or they’re running late,” Twilight said, taking her seat. This Anon considered.

“Point,” he said. “We can still order drinks while we wait though, right?”

Twilight - who had levitated a menu over to have a look through - lowered it enough to raise an eyebrow at Anon and his failure to grasp the hows and whys of restaurants.

“That’s usually how it works,” she said and he stuck his tongue out at her.

“Hey, this place is the fanciest, the rules have gone out the window as far as I’m concerned. The guy’s got a moustache, you’re in a real nice dress - everything’s new to me,” he said, gesturing to Twilight, the Moustache Pony all the other side of the restaurant and also a few of the more expensive looking pieces of decoration. He got his point across, and Twilight hid behind her menu again to hide her face.

“It’s not that fancy…” she mumbled.

“The lights have little dangly bits. That’s, like, a pretty good indicator of the fanciness we’re dealing with here.”

“Let’s just - just wait for Rarity and her date to arrive,” Twilight said.

And wait they did. Drinks were ordered, small talk made, the door watched but to not avail - of Rarity and her stallion there was no sign.

Not that Twilight was expecting there to be, of course. It remained a cunning ruse. What she was waiting for, though, was the next part of her intricate plan. This came some minutes later when a waiter came over and quietly informed her that there was a message for her at the front.

“Message?” She asked, not so woodenly to immediately give the game away, though Anon did look at her curiously.

“Guess you better go check it out, huh?” He said. And this indeed she did. All according to plan. She went off, returning a minute or so later affecting a look of concern.

“What’s up?” Anon asked.

“Rarity’s cancelled. She won’t be coming,” she said.

Anon was temporarily sidetracked by wondering how a message had arrived at all. Not by phone, that was for sure. But then he was certain it probably didn’t matter. A trifling technical detail. The more important part was the content of the message.

“Cancelled?” He asked, just to make sure he’d heard correctly. Twilight nodded.

“Something must have come up.”

Anon tapped a finger to his chin, thinking.

“That’s real short notice. That sounds like emergency to me. You reckon she’s okay? Should we go check?”

He twisted around and looked for a moment as though he was about to stand but Twilight quickly waved him off.

“Oh, oh I’m sure she’s fine. If it was anything bad she would have said so,” she said, licking her lips for the next part, the crucial part: “But, um, since the table is still booked we could still, you know, just you and me. If - if you want?”

Once again Twilight was chewing on her lip. She did not notice that she was doing this. Anon, by contrast, did, because he was looking at her closely. Very closely, in fact. More so than he had any point so far that day.

“What?” She asked, shifting in her seat.

Anon opened his mouth to speak but then seemed to think better of it, instead just sitting back in his chair and tilting his head at her ever-so-slightly. He then chuckled, sighed, looked down and shook his head just a little.

“Twilight,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m a relaxed kinda guy, I think we both know this. But I’m not entirely detached from reality. I do notice things.”

“I-I don’t k-know what you’re talking about, Anon,” Twilight stammered, her gut wrenching. Not now! Not when everything else had worked so well! Everything was falling apart around her ears! The plan was ruined! This was the worst possible time for it to be ruined!

But then he looked up again, and she saw that he was smiling, and her gut promptly stopped wrenching and started melting instead.

“If you wanted to go out like this why didn’t you just ask me?” He asked.

“Wha- I - but - it’s -”

She wasn’t wholly sure what it was she actually wanted to say to this, and her responses all tripped over one another. That Anon plainly found this overwhelmingly cute did not help the heat rising in her cheeks and she had to fight the urge to hide behind her hooves or run away. Or both at once, somehow.

Anon was still just smiling at her, though, which effectively pinned her in place.

“Did kind of figure something was up. Mean, could have bought the story if your delivery hadn’t been, you know, this breathless rush with you all nervous at the end of it. Kind of gave the game away. But I figured I’d see what was up. I could have been wrong. I mean, I wasn’t, but I could have been.”

This managed to snap Twilight out of it.

“You knew?! Why didn’t you say anything?” She asked, flabbergasted.

Anon shrugged.

“Didn’t want to cramp your style. You were trying really hard.”

She threw her menu at him and it bounced off his head.

“Okay, probably deserved that. Honestly though, you’d clearly gone to a lot of effort. It would have been rude to trample on that, you know?”

She kind of felt like throwing more things, but he meant well and this she knew. So instead she just sighed, slumping in her set and feeling sorry for herself.

“I did put a lot of effort in…” she groused, humphing.

“I can tell, I really can. I think it’s great. Kind of one of the things I like about you, really. One of a fair few. And I wasn’t just being nice about the dress either, you know. You look beautiful. But then I generally think you do, so I’m probably biased.

“Y-you do?”

“If you’re flat-out asking me, yes, I do. Just figured it’d be weird if I told you. How would I even work that into conversation anyway? But yeah.”

Anon took a sip from his drink while Twilight blushed so hard it almost made a sound, squirming in her seat with delight. This wasn’t according to plan, but she had to admit it might actually be going better than even her best predictive models. 

At no point had she even considered that he might call her beautiful! She hadn’t factored that in at all!

“You do know that if we manage to make a go of it then we’ll probably have to explain to your Canterlot buddies that we were stringing them along the first time,” Anon then chipped in with, as breezily as if he were discussing the weather, puncturing her mood somewhat.

“Let’s maybe see how this goes first,” she said. Anon nodded, perusing the menu again.

“Sensible, sensible. See? That’s another reason why I like you.”